Save Me From Myself
by Avdal
Summary: Some villains can sleep well at night, resting peacefully with a mind devoid of a conscience. Kylo Ren is not such a villain. Living with his extensive list of misdeeds is hard enough during the daytime. At night, his inner demons come out in full force to haunt him.
1. The Man That You Fear

This shouldn't be happening.

How in all the hells didn't he know about this sooner?

The first time that he'd heard of the child's existence, that had been Kylo's one and only question. How could he possibly _not_ know?

She must have found a way to hide it from him. She must have had help. Kylo knew exactly who to blame for that, though perhaps his mother had a hand in keeping this secret from him as well.

It had been five years since he'd last seen the Scavenger. Five years since he'd had her so close but she'd still somehow managed to slip away. To leave him utterly alone and move on with her life like he and the Bond had meant absolutely nothing to her.

And now the proof of just how far she'd moved on is laying unconscious on a small bed in front of him.

How could she have had a child and managed to not only keep it secret from the universe but from _him_ as well?

No. It wasn't possible. It simply wasn't.

And yet there he is. Her _son_. Her son with someone other than him. The sum of all his innermost fears merged together into a living, breathing thing.

Kylo kneels down next to the cot, confidant both in the potency of the Force sleep that he's put the boy under as well as that his men will leave him well alone for this. He had felt their thrums of curiosity and bewilderment when he'd ordered the boy to be spared during the siege and brought to him.

Perhaps they had thought him to be Kylo's own child?

It would be an understandable mistake. Even despite knowing better, the similarities between he and the boy were striking. As if the Force was trying to apologize to the Universe for allowing Rey to bear another man's child by bestowing upon him the traits that he should have carried to begin with.

Kylo reaches out and turns the limp body slightly so he can see him clearer. The boy he has his dark hair, a shade lighter than Kylo's own now but close to what he himself had at that same age. And his skin is lightly tanned, matching his mother's.

Rey. She had put up a vicious fight, exactly like any momma bear defending her cub would do. Many were lost from both sides, but he had ultimately succeeded in his goal: find the child and take him away from the woman who would dare to do this to him.

Rey's time will come too. Or at least that's what he has to tell himself. She will come for him, and this time Kylo will be ready. For now, he will have to settle on having just half of the equation.

When he touches him, he's very careful about it. Gently taking the boy's shoulder and turning him over fully despite knowing that he does nothing will wake him yet. The child feels substantial, despite his small frame. He feels… real. But he's not.

Kylo leans closer, taking a longer look and debating which of the million different threads of possible action to take. The boy has his mother's features. A small, pointed nose. The same chin, jaw, and even the same scattering of freckles over his cheeks. It comes as a sharp relief, though Kylo couldn't say why.

Knowing that the child looks more like Rey than his wretched father is… faintly comforting. But only just.

He can't actually exist, can he? None of these last five years spent searching, searching, _searching_ can be anything more than an unending nightmare. A trauma punctuated by finally finding him and seeing the truth first-hand.

He doesn't even know the child's name. He should have asked for that. Maybe, if he allows boy to wake up, he'll ask him.

Kylo pushes slightly into his mind, careful not to go too powerfully or hurt him because he's almost never done this to a child before and doesn't know how much or little of the strength to use.

And there it is: the first strum of energy within the child. Bright and endless with so much of the Light and barely even the faintest traces of shadows to sully a pristine mind. The boy is filled with the power of the Force, even if he probably doesn't know it yet.

Of course, with his mother being who she is, it should come as no surprise. The powers that she passed on are surely so great that they will outshine even the contamination of his father being a lowly pilot.

Gods, that _fucking_ pilot… Even thinking of Dameron ruins Kylo's moment of quiet awe, and he slips out of the child's mind before he loses his temper.

All those years ago, Kylo should have never let the pilot live. So much could have been avoided if he'd simply snuffed out his life when he'd had the opportunity to.

An odd pull at his mind and Kylo frowns before realizing the origin. The Force inside the boy is yanking at him, having latched on to the presence of the intruder even if their mental link had lasted for just a few seconds.

It's like he's already learning, working to free himself of the hold of sleep inflicted upon it by trying to untangle from Kylo's will. And he's nearly done it, too. Nearly broken out of the Force sleep by pure instinct alone.

His powers, though untrained and only barely starting to develop, are nothing short of remarkable. Impressed doesn't even begin to describe how Kylo feels to the effort, clumsy and uncertain though it is.

To be so young and to have so much power… it's too dangerous. Kylo knows what Snoke will ask of him. How long will he be able to keep him secret? Wouldn't it be kinder to simply kill him now before he is used, dangled, as some sort of bait in his master's tangled web?

It's not like Kylo hasn't killed children before, either directly or otherwise. But this is different. This is Rey's _son_. A piece of the woman that he's forever bonded to. What would killing him do to her? To either of them?

Kylo reaches out, hovering his open palm over the boy's head and shrugging back the sudden impulse within him to stroke the hair out of the small face. If he were to do this...do it now. Do it quickly. That would be the only way.

The boy's eyes shoot open then to that thought.

His power eclipsing Kylo's own as he pushes through and breaks out of his artificial sleep. Though, to be fair to himself, Kylo had done nothing to stop him from freeing himself. Almost welcomed the effort because it took such a horrible decision out of his hands.

Rey.

And the child has Rey's eyes. The same beautiful color, and they're glaring up at him. Terrified and full of tears ready to be shed, but also resilient. Vibrant.

Kylo drops his hand. Stares down at him in silence and allows the boy to poke at his mind with his own, feeling for the nature of the black presence looming over him but then recoiling at the first touch of darkness that he encounters.

He's terrified, Kylo realizes. Confused and afraid and wanting his mother. He knows she's not around, and Kylo can't help but feel a mean sense of relief that he doesn't even try once to seek out his father.

"Can you speak?" Kylo asks, wincing inwardly at how nonhuman his voice sounds through his vocoder. "What's your name?"

The boy stays still and says nothing. Of course he can speak, a child his age certainly should be able to, but he's choosing not to. Too afraid of Kylo and his perhaps knowing the thoughts that had been going through his captor's mind just moments before he awoke from his unnatural rest.

Kylo can see his own reflection, masked and ferocious, reflected in the boy's eyes. The seals the deal for him. He can't do this. Can't bring himself to even lift a finger against this child. Because, if he were to, he would lose his mother forever. Rey might even sever their bond, and she'd be well within her rights to.

"You're safe," he tells the child, dropping his hand away and standing up.

The boy doesn't move, doesn't blink. No outward emotions to Kylo's promise, but he means it nonetheless. He will take the boy under his protection. Find a way to keep him safe from his Master. Somehow.

Kylo turns away abruptly, summoning in two stormtroopers. They are apprehensive about entering the room. Fully expecting to have to remove a small dead body. Do they really think he's that much of a monster?

He nearly was. _Nearly_.

But now he's every bit as relieved as the troops when he tells them to take the boy to a cell and to be watchful of him as he is strong with the Force. His cell should be comfortable, but very secure. If the child is anything like his mother, and Kylo is willing to wager that he is, then he's a natural born escape artist and will need to be watched very carefully.

Snoke… Snoke will understand. Kylo will by himself as much time as he can, but when he inevitably finds out… Kylo will make him understand. He will find a way.

* * *

Kylo opens his eyes.

He'd been asleep. Deeply and having the strangest of dreams. It had been so vivid, felt so real, more like an omen in warning then a true nightmare. As if the Force itself was telling him to get his act together and go get his girl before it's too late.

Part of him wanted to go back to sleep. See how the rest of his vision would play out and how much he could change it now that he knew what it was. But then something had changed. Something in the real world had awoken him.

He's in his own bed on his ship. Sweaty, tangled in his sheets, and with a heart racing so fast that he is amazed he hadn't woken up sooner.

And Rey is still there, in the room that he'd given her but won't permit her to leave.

He reaches out to her on instinct, completing the first stage of his morning ritual as soon as his mind is coherent enough. Her presence is as soothing as ever, especially after such a troubling night. He can feel Rey so close to him, just a few short minutes walk from his own room. Her soul glows like an ember that will never fade in the back of his mind.

And, with his head still reeling between two worlds, he reaches out for the boy. Seeks to see if he's awake and upset or is still sleeping peacefully, forgetting already the dark presence that had loomed over him in threat.

Nothing. Oh. _Of course_ there's nothing.

He was just a figment of his imagination, after all. A mute token of Kylo's diseased mind.

That knowledge creates a dull pain somewhere deep in his heart. He really is hopeless, isn't he? Mourning the loss of a child that never even existed to begin with.

Not that there will ever a child in his life, and he's come to accept that. Still… It's a bitter pill to swallow. A few moments spent in a false world of if-only made for a pleasant distraction from the darkness he surrounds himself by.

Darkness indeed, but it hasn't been so bad recently. Much better for these last few days and he can't remember a time he last felt so content.

Because he still has _her_. She's there and she's real and this is the closest he's ever been to her, both in body and in soul.

Last night had been special. He'd thought they'd had a breakthrough. They must have, in fact, because now… now she's trying to run away.

 _Master?_

He can hear her call it out through the universe, seeking out Skywalker to come rescue her before she falls in too deep. Silly girl, she already is so far past the point of no return. They both are.

But when such an opportunity arises, he must take advantage of it.

Kylo pushes all thoughts of his strange dream to the farthest corers of his mind. It truly hadn't meant anything, just a byproduct of having his bondmate so close but still so far away. He can analyze it later, or perhaps not at all.

For now, it's a simple matter to drift off into a meditation trance and spy on what that duplicitous little Scavenger girl of his is trying to get up to.

* * *

author's note:

Not sure if I like this or not. I think this premise worked better in my head than it came across in writing, but I've been wanting to write an angsty DaddyKylo story for a long time. And this way I get to do it but keep it firmly in the dark and deranged space between Kylo's ears so it doesn't mess up the main storyline of the series.

Next chapter: Dream Kylo and Rey's son have their first meeting, prompting him to plot ways to bring MommyRey over into snatch-and-grab distance. We're pretty much talking about bag over the head & shove into a trunk territory. Meanwhile, Realife Kylo has just been dumped by his special lady and has all kinds of issues to work through.


	2. Just So Fond of You

Chapter Summary:

While Forcibly unconscious, Kylo tries to come to terms with his last week together with Rey. Then he wakes up. Queue the freakout. That following night, his dreams bring him another strange vision of the future.

* * *

" _You'll never have me, Kylo."_

" _Then I'll never stop chasing you."_

Of all of the things that had happened that evening, those were the words that had chosen to become stuck in Kylo's head. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't shake them out. They played on a loop over and over, ruining his unnatural rest even more than the inglorious pose his scavenger had left him in when she departed.

So she hates him? Hardly. She's lying to him and, far worse, she's lying to herself. That's why she has to repeat it again and again. Why she has to spit it out at him whenever he gets too close to her but she never fully means it.

No one works that hard to assure themselves of hatred. Hatred flows naturally and powerfully. It takes no effort to thrive.

The little glimmer of deeply buried affection in her eyes when he'd brought her to completion on his hand had given her away. He had finally achieved his end goal: a small part of her will forever be kept for him. He'd carved out a space in her soul and she'll never be able to get rid of him now.

Never be able to leave him, even when she's not there anymore.

And she's gone. He knows it.

His songbird had flown out of her cage. He knew that one day she would, but he'd hoped…

 _No._

Hope is a horrible thing. So much pain and misery has been caused by hope. He should have known better.

Doesn't give him much incentive to wake up, does it?

No, it truly doesn't. Why wake up at all when he can still have her here in his mind, a place she'll never be able to escape from.

Is it wrong that he enjoyed being able to go into her head whenever he wanted to? With the force suppression collar regally decorating her neck, she had been completely unable to stop him.

That's where he had seen the other part of her lies: her growing lethargy in her self-inflicted quest to hate him.

It had made him utterly unable to say no to her., even when he knew that he had to. She had wanted him to take her collar off. That had been nothing unexpected. They are such a miserable thing to wear, even though he had become so adoring of it on her. So very enamored of her mind next to his own and her body by his side where she belonged. Circumstances be damned.

And her _seduction_ was something to be cherished forever. Rey had been… he hates to use the word 'adorable' to describe the gorgeous and fierce little creature that he's bonded to but… kind of. She had been so precious. Perfect.

Yes. That's the one: perfect.

At that exact moment when she'd hurled her shirt at him and told him that he was the one ruining her seduction by not getting hopelessly turned on at the flash of a clavicle, he had never been more fond of her. He wouldn't have changed a single thing about her then. She could have stayed cursing vitriol at him forever and he wouldn't have minded one bit. Just to have her there with him had been enough.

His dream had come back to him then. Now, when he'd finally had her more or less willingly in his arms, he'd thought about that boy with the dark hair and his mother's eyes. The child that doesn't exist but prophetically could destroy everything that Kylo had built his life around.

When he had told Rey about his vision she had been confused. Then she had used his own emotions to get the better of him. He should be proud. That sort of underhanded manipulation was a pretty terrible move for a Lightsider to try.

As was inevitable when it comes to situations such as theirs, when there's so much tension and conflict and bonding between two people, they ended up rolling around in bed together and making out like a couple of randy teenagers on spring break.

Rey had started it. That's an important detail. And then, of course, he had continued it with renewed passion. Needy and desperate movements over this beautiful woman below him who was allowing this luxury. He wanted to use his tongue on her. Had wanted to for ages. Maybe that would work? Maybe if he brought her to a profound enough place of pleasure that she would finally give in and accept how good they could be together?

No, probably not. But it was worth a try.

His dream had still haunted him throughout. When he dipped his head lower, she'd sunk her lovely little claws into his scalp to try and dissuade him. He'd kissed her stomach and, just to stop driving himself down the path of oblivion with doubts, had scanned over the deepest parts of her body with the Force.

Her womb is empty, as it should be. But he had to make sure.

Since he's already so far gone, so deeply past the point of no return, he whispers his plea to the flesh and muscles underneath his lips. He hides what he's doing under the guise of an affectionate kiss, but he's really voicelessly begging the gods to have mercy on him. Never let her body carry a child other than his own. Let his nightmare stay as exactly that and nothing more.

He'll do anything that it takes to please her, so enamored as he is at this moment. But she doesn't _want_ him to pleasure her like that. Is pulling and yanking and drawing his head away and he hadn't even had a chance to taste her.

So his fingers will have to do instead. _That_ she readily relents to. Clearly Rey finds little objection to being touched and caressed by him, and when he reaches between her legs she's warm and slickly welcoming despite the dissonance raging in her mind.

If he wasn't hopelessly smitten, he might have objected to the vicious love bite she gives him to punish him for this. She's like a cat: biting the hand that strokes her.

But when he brings her over that edge he sees something that is close but not quite yet at love in her eyes. Not _yet_ at least. Fleetingly and she wanted like nothing else to hide it, but it was there and he'll forever have that part of her.

So sweet and soft. His sweet scavenger gasping in his arms. Being so ridiculous as to not only try to fight back her own orgasm but, when it became too much for her, to try and have it _quietly_.

She'd though about him throughout it. Not the pilot. Not anyone else. Just him and him alone.

 _That_ is the moment he chooses to keep alive, to keep going even as half of his mind struggles for consciousness and the other half wants nothing more than to stay here with her forever. The memory of her post-orgasmic glow as she blinked up at him shyly. For those few sweet seconds there had been no maliciousness left between them.

And that's what Kylo clings to.

What happened next in real life was… well, exactly what Rey had said would happen. She had changed in the blink of an eye. Going from the whom he- the woman who was always in his thoughts, to back to being his mortal enemy.

This time, he holds onto her. He forces her back out of his mind with ease. She's powerful, but not as powerful as he is. Then he pins her to her bed and glares down at her. This version of Rey is much softer than in reality. She looks up at him with both fear and contrition.

Except that ti's all fake and it just doesn't look right on her face.

Oh for kriffsakes… can't he even fantasize about her properly anymore? Now his own mind is working against him.

And that's truly the story of his life, but regardless...

"Rey."

He frowns. Her name doesn't sound right on his lips. This isn't how this was meant to go. He strokes her hair out of her face, trying to reassure himself despite knowing better.

She becomes passive and doll-like. His dreams are working against him. Kissing her feels like kissing a mannequin. This _isn't working_.

It's time to wake up.

This isn't a natural sleep. Maybe that's the problem. His body is fighting him too much. The Force hold on him is fading, and his own powers are drawing him back into consciousness.

He holds on for a little longer, resting his forehead against her collarbones and feeling her slowly dissipate against his fingertips. Her body melts away like sand and the symbolism isn't lost on him.

All he'd wanted to do was bring her closer to him. And now he's paying the price.

* * *

Kylo wakes up to that miserable thought.

For the first few minutes, he deliberately wills himself to not feel anything. That's good. Numbness is far easier than the alternatives.

Rey isn't here anymore. He reaches out for her, pulling on that chain that connects them. Wanting to just yank her through time and space and back to his side. Wanting to apologize or chastise her or at least occupy the same place so they can get last night out of the way and go back to being at odds with each other.

And she has done much more than leave. She's also _blocked_ him. Obstructed him from sharing their connection. Shoved him out of her head just when he'd gotten familiar with the pleasantness of occupying that same space with her.

That... little _bitch_. How _dare_ she go against the will of the Force like that?!

He can still feel her existence, though it's almost completely muted. He can feel her enough to know that she moving further and further away from him and doing so very rapidly.

Ah, she must be in hyperspace. Perhaps, if he was truly focused and calm, he could still use their Bond to track her, even if it's one-sided for the moment.

Instead of doing that, however, he chooses to close himself off from the bond as well. Shuts down his side from her because, hmmm... if she wanted so badly to get rid of him, then he's giving her exactly what she wants.

Then he lays there on his stomach, falling still, and tries to connect all the pieces. Tries to figure out exactly where he went wrong when he'd thought everything had been going so right.

That's the problem. He simply doesn't know. Somehow he must have misjudged what she thought of him.

Kylo sighs, swallowing down the wave of sadness that floods into him at that.

Where is she now? What is she doing right at this moment? These are things he used to have at his fingertips. Always being able to check in on her and keep no secrets.

He doesn't need to ask himself where she's going. There was only one place, one person, she would go crawling back to.

Now, without her, the room feels so different. Empty. Vacant. He had gotten used to having her around. It had been so soothing.

Maybe that was his mistake? He had gotten complacent?

Minutes go by before Kylo rolls over with a grunt, heaving himself ungainly onto his back and starting at the ceiling of her cell.

Her _cell_. He hadn't ever wanted her too feel that way about her quarters. Or about him, by extension. She'd misunderstood what his purpose in bringing her had been. This was never about _torture_ , as she seemed hell bent on claiming it to be.

Gods, what lies Skywalker must be filling her head with…

Very little had gone right since her capture.

And an odd thought strikes him. If this room had been her cell- if she'd felt like she was his prisoner- then she would have-

Kylo scrambles up off her bed immediately. The sudden movements makes his back pop and the cricks in his neck pinch from the uncomfortable pose her Force sleep had left him in. And he winces from the more delicate aches his scavenger had inflicted during her exodus.

Nevermind any of that, though. He needs to find them. She must have put _them_ somewhere…

Where are they? Where would she have hidden them?

He grabs the bedspread first, knotting his fingers into the obnoxiously white and institutional fabric of her sheets, and yanks it away. Somehow he had expected to find a hidden cash of trinkets ferreted underneath. A holdover from her scavenging days when every little bit she found could matter one day.

No. Nothing. Not there, but that would have been too obvious.

The mattress is next, and he flips it away behind him with a surge of the Force. His heartbeat starts to rise as he checks the frame itself. Nothing again. He'll have to tear her whole room apart.

 _Good._ At least this time he has an excuse.

He begins to rampage. Furniture and bedding flies in every direction. Some of it gets torn in half as his temper wavers.

Then he comes across the girl's shirt. The one that she had so unceremoniously hurled at him while performing the galaxy's least erotic striptease.

It makes him pause, but only for a moment.

He balls it up with both hands and rips it cleanly down the middle.

 _There_. That feels much better.

His motions lose much of their usual finesse in the face of his rising temper as he continues. They _have_ to be here.

The bed frame becomes his next victim, buckling in on itself as he tears it out of the mountings on the wall.

Where did you put them, you filthy little scavenger?

The remaining pieces of furniture in the room fare no better. The table gets overturned and her chairs, well, he doesn't even bother checking those. But they bring him only momentarily satisfaction when he hurls them at the wall and they break into so many shards.

Nothing.

It's empty. Her room is empty.

It's filled with scraps of his typical chaos now, but the room is still empty.

She didn't mark away her time here… Why not? She hated it here. She hated _him_. So why didn't she do her little scratches?

He doesn't have an answer to that. Isn't even going to try to guess.

She could have, but she didn't.

That revelation fails to come as even a cold comfort to Kylo. Half of him wants to tear her room down to the very foundation. Rip the walls down and score the floor. Use his saber to melt whatever it touches until every sign of her presence here has been incinerated. That would be the correct thing to do.

But then the proof of her ever being here would be gone. It could have all just been another dream, like with her nonexistent child that still haunts the back of his mind.

There's nothing left. No sign that she ever was even-

Wait, there is _one_ thing.

He'd been about to order the stormtroopers to come in here and strip the room. Clear everything away and bring it back to its usual sterile precision.

Instead, he closes his eyes and _reaches_.

Their bond is stronger than ever. Blocked, granted, but it takes him no effort at all to find it. To locate that thick rope that encases his mind and connects him with her.

Her side is an absence of feeling. It's still there, but when he tries to touch on it, it's like reaching into a black hole. Numbness. Nothingness and numbness.

Is that how it's going to be from now on? She will just leave it like that? A phantom tether between them that is the essence of oblivion?

Gods, that would be unbearable. For them both, in fact, unless he was completely wrong about her true feelings for him.

Kylo sinks down to his knees then. Already the feeling of her loss is… overwhelming. And she's _only_ blocking him. This is nothing. This is a couple's spat.

That brings another problem to light. Their connection may be blockaded now, but it still has _grown_. Become something that's far too obvious now. There's no way he'll be able to hide it from Snoke. He'll either need to come clean and… deal with the fallout. Or destroy it.

But could he even? It's supposed to be unbreakable. He had come upon that conclusion when their connection had first formed. Back then when the notion of severing it was still an option he had fleetingly considered.

Now it's far too late. Neither he nor his master nor her _own_ master can change what has been built.

Their Bond is the will of the Force. He's said it so many times and meant it every single one.

So why in all the hells can't Rey accept that?

* * *

That night, Kylo sleeps in her room.

In her trashed, demolished, and ruined _cell_. He leaves it just like he'd left it. Furniture strewn about and with a broken bed frame cast aside into a corner.

He doesn't actually care about any of that. This room was hers once and that's enough. The only thing he changes is flopping her mattress back over so that he can sleep in the same indentation as she did.

And he doesn't care how obsessive and downright pathological he's acting.

This is not… these are not the actions of some lovelorn fool who's trying to simper away his aching soul. If they were, he would have done something ridiculous like holding her tattered shirt to his chest while pining over their rejected bond.

He did none of that. Rather, he had stepped over the ruined garment on his way in and hadn't given it a second look or thought until this moment.

What he's doing now has nothing to do with sentiment. No, he's trying to manifest another vision. There has to be a reason why he dreamed what he did, and now he intends to find out exactly what it is.

Maybe, perhaps, if he falls asleep here, the remnants of her presence will leak through into him? The Force will let him continue with what he'd started the night before?

Either his fantasy of the girl in his arms or the prophetic notions of her future child would find a welcome place in his head at the moment. Anything to still the endless cycle of his thoughts. His compulsion to constantly check in on her through their lopped connection and see if any cracks have started to form.

They haven't yet. But he's working on it. Pushing and pulling and tugging and lashing at her barricade. He'll get through. He told her he wouldn't stop chasing her and he meant it.

So he lets his thoughts fill with memories of her. Throws them at the back of his psyche in the hopes that one of them will stick and become his companion for the night.

* * *

"What is your name?"

Kylo gets exactly what he wants.

Tonight goes differently. This time he knows that he's in a dream.

Now that he understands this, the question becomes _why_? Why is the Force showing him this prophecy of the future? Is it warning him, like it did the first time he'd dreamed about the boy? It has to be. But the difference is that this time he's in control.

"Please tell me your name," he requests again.

The boy stares at him with open astonishment but says nothing. Kylo can feel that he's still very afraid. The child doesn't seem to like him very much and he doesn't want him to be here, but… he also doesn't want him to leave.

Oh. Of course. He doesn't want to be alone.

Kylo should have known better. A child of this age is still far too young to be left completely by himself for such a long time. He had ordered the stormtroopers to secure him in this room, but then neglected to give them any further instructions.

So they had simply locked him away and then left. This equated to a full day of this young child being alone in here by himself, confused and so scared. It makes Kylo quite angry, but of course the troops were just doing exactly as they were told. He himself should have had more foresight and made better provisions for his care. This has probably set them back quite a few days at least.

"You shouldn't be afraid. _Please_. I only want to talk to you."

The child looks away at that. His face is swollen and streaked with recent tears, but he's also trying so hard not to cry now in front of his new captor. He mutely stares at the wall until Kylo shifts closer, and then he glances back at him for just a second.

"I'm not afraid," the boy finally whispers, checking Kylo's face to see if he believes his lie.

This is progress. When Kylo had first entered the room, the boy wouldn't speak at all. Rather, he had curled up against the corner of the walls at the farthest side of his bed. The minimal furnishings in his room had been disrupted. Evidently, he'd been trying to get out. Good thing he's so young and his powers so underdeveloped, or Kylo would have probably had to have him collared as well and that would have truly complicated things between them.

Kylo had next attempted to converse with him with no luck. It was only when he removed his mask and had kneeled down, bringing them to eye level as equals, that the child could be coaxed to speak in monosyllables.

And now here they are, up to full sentences. It was indeed progress, small though it was.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Kylo repeats what he told him earlier.

The child doesn't believe him anymore this time than when he'd first said it. Kylo probably himself wouldn't either, if their places had been reversed.

He shouldn't have been left… but there were no other child prisoners on board. No one else he could have put in here with him for safe company.

"Please?" Kylo tries again. All he wants is his name, and they can start to build from there.

The boy shakes his head. Kylo resists the urge to sigh. No need to guess which side of his family he gained his silent, stubborn streak from.

"I'll have to leave if you don't tell me your name," he says. "Do you want me to leave?"

His shy captive seems to think about it. He doesn't immediately tell him to get lost, so he's unlike his mother in at least _one_ regard.

Then the boy's stomach rumbles. It's a small little noise, and the child presses his lips together. He may be stubbornly refusing to answer Kylo, but he's looking up at him with an unintentionally open plea.

Sometimes the best incentives are the simplest ones.

"Are you hungry?" Kylo asks, debating how much longer the boy will be able to hold out from speaking to him if giving in means he'll be fed and provided for.

Kylo feels a faint hint of pressure in his mind as the child tries to gauge his intentions. It's a clumsy attempt, but there's an organic quality to the simple way the child wields the Force. Rey must have been teaching him from a truly young age for him to be so natural with it.

And he may be too clever for his own good. Kylo will have to quickly establish ground rules on how he can't just go poking around anyone's mind whenever he feels like it. Which is certainly a double standard, but no matter…

 _Are you hungry?_ Kylo projects the words into the child's mind.

The boy's eyes widen. Then he nods just the once.

Kylo tips his head to the side and waits.

"Yes?" he finally whispers.

The boy says it so quietly that Kylo can barely hear him. They've got a long road ahead of them, don't they?

"Have you eaten at all?" Kylo asks. "When the troopers brought you in here, did they give you any food?"

The boy shakes his head. Then hurriedly corrects himself with an equally soft "no" in answer.

Kylo feels a pang of anger spike through him, but he hides it quickly before the child can pick up on it and go back to being constantly terrified of him. How ironic that this situation _which isn't even real_ is what finally has made him learn to curb his temper.

"I will talk to them about that," Kylo says with a sigh, pushing up off his knees to stand up. "Shortly someone should come in with a meal for you. I would appreciate it if you at least tried to eat part of it, even if it's not to your liking."

Kylo turns to leave and the boy shifts closer. This is the first time he's moved in any direction except away and Kylo pauses and looks back at his shoulder at him.

"You're going?" the child asks.

Kylo nods, resiting the inner smile he feels as his plan starts to take form.

"Yes," he tells him stoically. "I'll come back later. Tomorrow maybe."

Tomorrow is a long time from now. And that's exactly the point.

The boy looks up at him. It's so clear what he wants, but he still refuses to simply come out and say it. Kylo had hoped that he would be more cooperative than this.

"Well, I _could_ stay a little longer," he begins to offer, "though you would have to-"

"Desmond."

Kylo blinks. Turns back fully to face the child who recoils slightly and curls around himself at the far end of the bed.

" _Desmond_..." Kylo thinks over it.

The name means 'defender'. It's a slightly odd choice, but Kylo was greatly worried the child would have been named after his father and he would have had to swallow his indignation every time he addressed him.

"Desmond… Interesting." Kylo turns to the comm panel on the wall and orders a plate of food to be brought in. "It's not the name I would have chosen for you, but I like it. Your mother did well by you."

The mention of Rey makes something ache inside Kylo. The boy looks deeply unhappy. He'll have to be more careful not to mention her unless the child brings it up himself.

So Kylo sits down at the edge of the bed while they wait in silence. The child relaxes increment by increment and looks up at Kylo. Expectantly waiting for him to do something of interest or engagement.

Ah… yes. He should have thought about that before, too. Before he had bartered his own dubious company in exchange for the child's name.

Only now does it occur to Kylo that he truly has no idea how to talk to children. When he had been this age, he had sometimes played with other kids but had also spent a lot of time on his own. Ben had been a quiet and introverted child and making friends had never come easily to him. Perhaps it's the same with Rey's son, or maybe the child is just unusually meek from the stresses of these last two days.

Well, now is as good a time as any to find out, isn't it?

"Alright Desmond," Kylo can spare a little longer before he has to wake up, "tell me about yourself. Tell me what you like and tell me about your family. Your mother, specifically. Tell me everything there is to know about her."

* * *

Author's Note:

Hmmmm? I really struggled with this chapter so… it is what it is. IDK.

I'm taking November off to (hopefully!) write my first commercial fiction during NaNoWriMo, but I'll try to get in one more update before then. It'll probably be a pretty short one, though.

Next chapter:

Kylo is hopelessly in over his head but his beloved is almost does something that would completely throw him over the edge. That only leaves him with one choice left: find salvation in his dreams because the real world is just too unbearable without her.


	3. Paved With Good Intentions

Chapter Summary:

Where Rey's imaginary son gets an imaginary friend. Meanwhile, Kylo drives himself crazy contemplating all the ways he's losing his mind.

* * *

Skywalker had tried to destroy them both.

There was never a time that Kylo hated his uncle more than at that moment.

Rey crawling back to the old man was predictable. She had nowhere else to go and she probably thought enduring his tutelage was part of her duty or destiny or whatever rubbish he had been filling her mind with. No, it was painfully obvious where and _with_ whom her destiny was intertwined with, but the stubborn little desert rat simply refuses to listen to rhyme and reason.

And, if stealing away Kylo's other half wasn't bad enough, his uncle had tried, had actually _dared_ , to attempt to cleave their bond. He had tried to break the unbreakable and go against the will of the very Force itself. The… audacity and arrogance of it. The sheer _nerve._

Just who the hell does Skywalker think he is? He's not a god. He's a useless and blind old fool who contaminates everything that he touches.

And Rey had almost let him. And he had almost succeeded.

That thought alone was enough to knock the air out of Kylo's lungs and leave him reeling. Skywalker had nearly _succeeded_ in destroying their bond. It shouldn't have been possible. No one has that sort of power.

His comm had been buzzing, reminding him that he had duties beyond being a horrified onlooker to the spectacle unfolding across the galaxy. It didn't matter. Nothing would matter if Skywalker achieved his twisted goal.

But, in the end, she had stopped him. Now all Kylo wants to do is talk to Rey and ask her why she didn't let go through with it.

Her end of the bond is shaky. Enough to let some of her feelings through.

She hates him. She doesn't really. But maybe on some level she actually does. But even in her false hatred she saw the truth and couldn't let their connection be destroyed.

It wasn't much, but it was something to hold on to. The barest crumb of sentiment from the woman he's allowed himself to become so entangled by.

And the worst part in all of this is that he can still _feel_ the child. The developing push and pull of Desmond's soul. It's a lie. It's a feeling that shouldn't exist, because _he_ doesn't exist. Not in any form at all. Not a child or even a fetus or a gathering of the Force into a new life. Nothing. There should be _nothing_.

And yet… Kylo can feel him.

 _I think I'm going insane._

Kylo has thought that from time to time. The cracks that had rent Ben Solo's mind into so many pieces only to have his Master collect them and remold the debris into whatever it is that he is now. No one can go through that and come out whole.

But this is different. These thoughts in his head shouldn't be there. They're too real. Like he can reach out and yank on the boy's mind, just too see if he's there. Prove to himself and the world that he exists outside of Kylo's head.

He's tempted to, but he doesn't.

Because… what if he could? What if he really is hallucinating to this level? To this point where he genuinely can't tell reality from fiction anymore?

That would be very, very dangerous. Both for him _and_ for Rey.

And if he can't control whatever this thing is that's happening to him…

Snoke will know. Oh, he'll find out one day or another, that much is inevitable. But Kylo _can_ buy himself time. Time enough to sort out this chaos in his head and have a damn good excuse ready.

"Hello."

Kylo had expected silence when he walked into Desmond's cell again. He had also half expected to find it empty, and to spend the rest of his sleep cycle in an exhausting manhunt in pursuit of the Scavenger's son.

Instead Desmond is sitting on the edge of his bed, hair mussy and eyes red as if he's recently been crying. Was he really so upset to be here?

"You haven't changed your clothes," Kylo comments, stepping inside so the door can slide closed and lock itself behind him.

Desmond stares up at him and doesn't answer. He's wearing the same tunic and pants that he'd been taken in, and it had been two days already. No new clothes had been provided and, if they had been, no one had seen to make sure that he put them on. The stormtroopers really have been lacking in his care, haven't they?

The boy doesn't respond. Merely shakes his head in a mute refusal of Kylo's company and stays as silent as ever.

Kylo slips off his mask and sits down next to the boy. To his relief, he doesn't immediately recoil to the far side of his cot like he did before.

"So you've gone back to not speaking to me? I had rather hoped we were past this already."

Never before has he felt so much like a fish out of water. The child is so young. Barely out of his infancy. Caught at a tricky age that Kylo barely remembers of himself and therefore has little to no basis to ground their relationship with. What is it that young children like? They know nothing about anything.

"Are you bored in here? Would you like me to bring you some… toys? Holobooks?"

The boy seems to think the question over, negotiating within his own mind about his captor's intentions. Kylo sighs. Does he even know how to read yet? He probably does, he seems quite bright. But at what level? What would interest him? Lots of colorful pictures and simple plots seems appropriate, but the First Order hardly has much that fits _that_ description.

If you'd asked Kylo a week ago if he would be contemplating educating himself on early childhood developmental milestones, it would have been far too ridiculous a notion to even contemplate. Of course, one week ago he hadn't known of the child's existence at all. What a difference a few days can make…

"You're lonely."

The boy looks at him, and Kylo knows he hit the nail on the head.

"You're lonely and you want your mother."

The dark head nods slightly. Kylo's shoulders sag.

"Your father as well? Do you miss him as much?"

It's a leading question, and the boy merely shrugs rather than give him anything concrete to build his hopes upon. The boy's seeming indifference about Dameron provides a slight relief, but only very slight.

"Alright Desmond, I will try to help. Your mother will be here soon, but until then maybe I can find some other children that you can spend time with. I wish I could promise you more but…"

But we're on a starship in the middle of a war and I don't want to start breaking promises to you.

"How long do I have to be here?"

Desmond has Rey's lilting accent which Kylo would normally appreciate, but the words behind the small voice make him wince inwardly.

"Until your mother gets here."

It's the simplest possible explanation that Kylo can give that's not a lie. No need to trouble or confuse the child with the logistics of dragging Rey in here kicking, screaming, and at any cost of Stormtrooper life.

"She's looking for me. She's upset and wants to find me."

Ah, yes. There's _that_ complication as well. The connection between a young Force user and his mother. Ben and… General Organa had been very close throughout his young childhood. And Leia had nowhere near as direct a connection with the Force as Rey. It's impossible to know exactly how much Rey can sense through her son, even now when they're so very far apart.

"Does she talk to you?"

Kylo leans closer to the child as he asks it because whispering seems appropriate for their quiet conversation. "Does she talk to you in your head? Does she know you're here?"

Desmond shrugs. Kylo can sens a touch of sadness in him that gives him pause.

"What has your mother told you about the Force?"

He assumes Rey would be doing all the talking. That is, unless Skywalker has been trying to get his claws in early and corrupt the boy's mind before he has grown strong enough to defend himself. Most likely the boy's biological father would be worse than useless at explaining to Desmond what it is that makes him so special. If Poe is anything like Kylo's own father, he would rarely be around and only pop by for a token visit when-

"What happened to him?" Desmond asks, interrupting Kylo's bitter inner monologue.

Kylo realizes he had been squeezing his gloved hand into a fist, wadding up the material of the bed below him. Desmond reaches out and tugs on his sleeve. Kylo immediately forces himself to relax. The boy is terrified of him enough already, the least he can do is control his temper for a few minutes visitation a day.

"Whom?" Kylo asks, keeping his voice steady.

"Your father? You were thinking about him and you were very sad."

Oh kriff... He had been so distracted with trying to form empathy with the boy that he hadn't realized he'd been projecting his thoughts. Or, far more disturbingly, Desmond had been reading his mind and he hadn't even noticed it. Truly he his his mother's son, isn't he?

"I'll have to be careful with you," Kylo muses, cracking a small smile. "You're far too clever for your own good."

Desmond looks up at him expectantly. Rather than answering the unanswerable, Kylo stands up, straightening his clothes and feeling acutely aware of the child watching his every move.

"Oh," is all the boy says.

Kylo doesn't have to push at Desmond's mind to know that he hates being left alone. He'll have to find some sort of solution to that. If no other First Order children are available, and Kylo highly doubts there will be, than perhaps a droid would do. It would be like a pet to the child, but without the mess and short life expectancy.

"I will be back soon," Kylo promises, picking up his mask but holds it in his hands, hiding it behind his back and out of sight. "A droid will come in shortly to bring you food and clean up your room. Why don't you try and talk to it? It won't have a mind like a living thing, but perhaps it might have something interesting to say regardless."

Kylo had woken up from his dreams as soon as he had closed the door and left the child inside. He was beginning to wonder at what cost these dreams were coming to him. His head felt sluggish and his responses were not what they should be. Inevitably these will effect his performance for the First Order, but perhaps the vision will have played out too completion before it becomes apparent to anyone whose opinion could possibly matter.

Still, despite the cost the dreams drew away from him, they also came as a welcome, albeit exhausting reprieve. Rey had taken to shutting him out completely. Blocking him so thoroughly that, if it wasn't for the constant beat of her heart in the back of his mind, he wouldn't know that she was still alive.

That had to be Skywalker's doing. When Rey had left him, she had been far more open. Not quite willing to allow Kylo into her mind as often as he wanted, which was virtually nonstop, but she had been approaching a point of amicable to the idea of allowing their connection to grow.

Now all that progress had been undone. She truly was as stubborn as her son. Her son which doesn't exist.

Snoke will probably end the dreams. He'll see through the shoddy wall of excuses and justifications, and end Kylo's nightly visions.

The notion should come as a relief. His master will end the torment of a fantasy where Rey chose someone else but him. End the suffering Kylo feels every time he wakes up and the world is the same as it was when he went to sleep.

Yes, it should be a comfort. Kylo should seek him out to cure him. To fix his broken mind.

Except… Snoke has never fixed anything. The Dark side doesn't work like that. It can reshape and change and grow, but not heal.

And, when Snoke takes the dreams away, he'll take the child along with him. The boy will be gone, even through he was never really here. The visions will not have had enough time to lead him down the path of their intention.

That thought alone is enough to make Kylo balk. Make him dodge his master's summons yet again.

Kylo is being shown this for a reason, and he has to see it out.

Because the will of the force must not be denied. Not for anyone.

That night, Kylo threw himself into the dream with gusto.

He was still sleeping on Rey's former bed for reasons that he can't even pretend aren't obsessive and more than a little pathetic. He's quite sure that the dreams will come to him regardless of where he sleeps, so he closes his eyes and wills himself into the land of the unconscious.

And he had found a BB unit as a companion to the child.

There was symmetry in that. It seemed like a natural choice, and hopefully one that afforded the child a sense of home and familiarity despite the circumstances.

This unit was an older model that had a distinctive personality and a curious nature. Kylo personally found it highly annoying, especially with the unit's propensity to get in the way underfoot, but it seemed a more warm and personable choice than a standard serving droid.

The boy is playing with him when Kylo enters his room.

Or rather, to be more accurate, the droid the child named BB0 is attempting to entertain him with some of the First Order's flight training videos because they were the closest thing to a children's movie that Kylo could obtain without raising too many eyebrows. Desmond seemed to be terribly grateful for even the inanimate company, and he looked like he didn't want to hurt the robot's feelings so he was at least pretending to pay attention.

It made for an amusing scene: a wildly powerful force sensitive child and an ambling and high-strung robot both trying to make a good impression on each other.

"Desmond."

Kylo still hasn't gotten used to the child's name. When he has Rey again, and presumably when she's calm enough to speak to him rationally, he'll have to find out why she picked that title for him.

Desmond looks over at him as he walks closer, the door to his cell sliding closed behind him. The half smile on the child's face falls and Kylo mentally kicks himself and immediately takes off his mask.

The boy eyes the offending object in Kylo's hand with a slight frown as it gets set down on the foot of his cot. The cell he has been placed in is sparsely furnished, with only token interest in a prisoner's comfort taken into consideration. But it had been cleaned at least, Kylo notes with approval. The furniture is back in place and, aside from a few random odds and ends that are curiously out of order. Catching his eye in particular is a small plastic drink cup that has somehow worked its way up onto a high shelf in the room. Far higher than Desmond or the BB unit could reach. There's no furniture near it that could have been climbed on, and he highly doubts a careless Stormtrooper would have randomly put it there.

"So you haven't been trying to escape anymore. That's good. You wouldn't have been able to make it out anyhow."

Desmond seems a little put out by that pronouncement. Kylo leans closer to him, waiting for him to confess. Instead of being intimidated, the little spitfire scowls and crosses his arms, swinging his legs angrily against the open space below the frame of his cot.

"Do you like your new clothes?" Kylo asks, changing the subject now that he's sure his point has been received.

Desmond looks down at himself. The simple tunic and pants that he'd been taken in have been replaced with a blue and black flannel plaid pajama set. It was hardly dignified and not really suitable for outerwear, but it was also literally the only child's sized garment in stock that wasn't jet black from head to toe.

The First Order truly needs a little more imagination, Kylo muses, but he could easily say the same thing about his own sartorial choices.

"I really wish you'd talk to me," he sighs as the silence stretches between them uncomfortably.

BB0 whirs back and forth in the sidelines, holding its holovid datapad at the ready for when its services are needed. The moniker the child had chosen for him had been based off the droid's tattered paint where his original model number had faded to an unreadable, rounded shape. Kylo hadn't pressed him to pick a more interesting name because, frankly, he didn't really care. The droid was merely a crutch to ease the child's crippling loneliness until a better solution could be arranged.

' _Do you prefer to talk to me in your head?'_ Kylo projects into Desmond's mind, following a hunch of what might be the problem.

The boy's head snaps up to him, and it looks like he's finally given up glaring at his shoes and waiting for Kylo to leave.

' _Mom said that I shouldn't.'_

Kylo's eyebrows raise. He is very curious to know what exactly Rey had been telling her son about the Force.

' _It's alright with me, I can do it to. Do you talk to your mother like this?'_

Desmond presses his lips together and his foot bounces excitedly. BB0 whirs closer, datapad extending. Kylo waves him away with a push of the Force, noticing how the boy's interest spikes at the simple display of power.

' _Yeah. But… I can't do it with my dad. Mom said not to try because it upsets him.'_

Kylo frowns as a few interesting parallels and differences are coming into focus. But Han had been more nervous or bewildered than upset when Ben's powers had first started to develop.

It would have been interesting to know Desmond as a young child. As a _younger_ child. At what age did his connection with the Force first show itself? Where there tremors of it even as an infant, and he was able to nudge his mother into knowing what he wanted instead of simply crying his little head off like more basic children do?

Rather than ask the boy more questions he's unlikely to be able to answer, Kylo turns his attention back to that errant cup on the high shelf. It had been out of order enough to bother the back of his mind for their entire short time together.

"How did that get up there?"

Kylo gestures at it with a crook of his head. Desmond follows his gaze and his shoulders jump when he figures out what Kylo's referring to.

"I don't know."

Desmond turns his attention back to swinging his legs and thunking the heel his shoes against the leg of his cot. BB0 shrinks deeper into the background, sensing the child's obvious discomfort as much as Kylo can even without the aid of the Force.

' _Yes. You do know. So why don't you tell me?'_

The child tries to ignore the voice projected into his head. He pouts and frowns and pretends that the space between his feet is the most interesting thing in the room. Kylo nudges him with the Force, goosing him gently between his shoulder blades, and the boy jumps slightly.

' _They put it there,'_ Desmond offers. He's a little more chatty with telepathy, though only slightly. Kylo doesn't mind. There's something extremely pleasing about witnessing Rey's son use his abilities so naturally.

A beat passes between them as Kylo waits. The child is clearly lying.

' _No. They didn't. You did.'_ Kylo insists when it becomes clear that he's being consciously ignored.

Desmond pulls a face and looks down again. He doesn't want to admit to it. Why does he feel the need to hide his powers? What have others been telling him about this?

Kylo knows very little about young children. Or older children. Or humans in general. But he does know it helped before to get down to eye level or below with the child.

He tried that with the boy's mother once once it didn't really work, but those were extenuating circumstances.

So he kneels down on the floor to the side of the child. The boy looks at him and Kylo can feel him poking at the periphery of his mind. He has no chance of getting very far, nothing beyond what Kylo choses to let him sense, but the fact that he's trying it at all is remarkable.

"Why are you afraid to use your powers?" Kylo tries again. "Did someone tell you not to?"

The poke at his mind grows firmer. It's enough to make his temple itch slightly. These are critical formative years. The child needs to learn to grow and control his abilities now or he'll face a great deal of problems later.

"My mom told me."

That answer had not been what Kylo was expecting. He'd had visions of Desmond being picked on by simple, jealous children back at whatever Resistance base he'd been growing up on.

"Rey? Why wouldn't Rey want you to use your powers?"

It doesn't make sense. He's already somewhat skilled at the basics. Telepathy and telekinesis and perhaps a few other things as well. Those aren't the sort of abilities he would have been able to refine on his own without guidance.

"Because it scares people. She said not to do it when she's not there."

Once more Kylo has to ponder what sort of role Skywalker has had in the boy's short life. With Rey being his prized apprentice he can only imagine the drama that her pregnancy and Desmond's birth would have brought to the old man.

"You can do it around me. It's alright. I'm not afraid of you."

Desmond shakes his head quickly. He's not a fool. He knows who Kylo Ren is, though the details of what he's been told will make all the difference in these next few days.

Rather than belabor the point and try to convince the child to accept his words, Kylo extends his arm in the direction of the cup on the shelf and uses far more of the Force than necessary to bring it through the air into his hand. He wants Desmond to _feel_ how he did that and, since the boy likes to hover over the surface of his mind like a satellite anyhow, it seems the most effective way to teach him.

"Here," Kylo opens his palm and rests the cup there out of reach of the boy's arms. "Now you try it. Bring it to you."

BB0 watches curiously, and Kylo makes a mental note to have it's storage wiped later on before it goes back into general use.

Desmond hesitates, but curiosity ripples off of him. He frowns, his small features scrunching up as he concentrates.

The cup lifts by a few millimeters than plops back down. He tries again, his will commanding it to move, and again he fails within a matter of seconds.

And then the boy pushes away, both mentally and physically. He flops over and turns his back to Kylo, hanging his head slightly.

Oh. He's embarrassed.

Desmond actually had been trying to move it, but for some reason he couldn't. Not when Kylo was around. He'd seemingly had no problem with sending it and other pieces around his room when he was alone. The only new variable was Kylo himself.

The realization hits Kylo like a punch to the stomach. That's right, he _himself_ is the problem.

The boy is profoundly on the side of the light. There's virtually no darkness in him. Hardly even any grey. The inky black fissures in Kylo's force signature had been sapping away at him through the shaky link the boy had made to his mind. Kylo's own prolific darkness had literally been blocking the child's connection to the Force.

He stands up abruptly then, not wanting to take anything more away from the child than he already accidentally had.

"Perhaps you are tired and need to sleep," Kylo suggests, hurriedly edging to the far side of the room and the door. "Rest for a while and then try again. I'll be back very soon. I have… an idea for something that might help."

Rey had often called him crazy.

An insane, certifiable lunatic. Those had been her exact words. Turns out that she was probably right.

How else beyond a failing mental balance could Kylo explain why he felt so _guilty_? He had promised Desmond that he would only be gone for a few short hours. Then he had awoken back into the real world and it was already nearly time for him to rise and begin his day. All over again. The endless cycle.

Desmond would have to wait all day for many more hours than he'd told him it would be before he returned.

And he felt such guilt about that. Guilt that he had let a figment of his mind down. This isn't normal. This isn't the way a sane, adult man should think. Perhaps he really is going insane.

Once there had been a time that Kylo would have given anything to never dream again. During his transformation from Ben Solo into his new self his dreams had been…

There is no rest for the wicked. He could escape his past during the daytime, but at night there was no exit. It had taken him years to be able to sleep dreamlessly. Now all he wants is to stay in his dreams forever. The world his mind has created is so much better than the truth.

When he collapses onto Rey's mattress that night, it's with a deep sigh of unknowable emotions.

"You can control it with your mind. It takes quite a bit of practice and skill, but once you learn the techniques it can be quite a lot of fun."

Kylo has no idea what _fun_ is for a 5 year old. He assumes that honing his command of the Force into the needle-like precision required to transform the light suspended in the glass orb would not provide a child with much amusement. Still… upselling it and all that.

He demonstrates again, making a show of concentrating and commanding the light to change colors and then bounce around the container like a firefly in a glass. It was a deceptively simple exercise. One that was similar to what Skywalker had taught him when he was a very young student.

Kylo refuses to follow that line of thought any further. No point in losing his temper around Desmond. The boy has reason to fear him enough as it is.

Instead, he tries to hand the orb over, eager to see what the child can do with it.

"I don't want it."

Kylo blinks twice at the child's deadpan rebuttal. It was rude of him, but pardonable because of his age. And it was also a lie. He'd seen how Desmond's eyes had lit up as the light in the ball had flickered and changed. He does indeed want to play with it, but won't say so out loud because he's a stubborn son of a Scavenger who always has to be so difficult about every little concession that's asked of him.

"No? Are you sure?"

Kylo makes the light bounce and blink, changing colors like a kaleidescope.

Desmond presses his little mouth into a grim line and scowls. It's… adorable. He looks like an angry kitten.

"I'll give it to you," Kylo prompts, holding back the urge to smirk and the child's obvious interest. "I'll give it to you and it will be yours to keep. But, first, you need to show me that you know how to use it. These kind of things are very valuable. And very fragile. I need to know if you're ready for a challenge like this yet."

The orb is neither unusual or worth particularly much, but Kylo hopes to bolster they boy's ego into accepting it. A trick like that would have worked on Ben, so it's worth the try now, isn't it?

Again Desmond probes at his mind. He's a very mental child. Very cerebral. It's unusual to try to read thoughts this young. Normally very young Force sensitives feel emotions but don't actively seek out the thoughts behind them.

"You want me to-" Desmond begins to say, but then stops himself.

Kylo sighs. Talking to the boy is like verbal quicksand. Every time he thinks he's gaining a footing, the landscape changes and all progress sinks down into the mire.

"Use the Force. Bring it to you and out of my hand."

Kylo holds his palm wide open. The boy stares at him with a look of blatant mistrust. So much like his mother. Impossible to reason with and frustrating to boot.

Then Desmond reaches out with his hand. Tries to snatch it out of Kylo's grasp.

"No," Kylo says quickly, standing up and effectively moving the toy out of the boy's short range. "I told you to use the Force. Use your powers. If you want this, you have to use your mind to get it."

Desmond doesn't like that one bit. His eyes narrow and his little hands ball into fists. He really is like a kitten: hissing and ineffectual but ready to claw to get at his prize.

"I don't want it. Go away."

Desmond crosses his arms and looks away, irritation prickling off of him like a coat of thorns.

It's frustrating because he's so unreasonable. But if he thinks he can manipulate Kylo through a tantrum he's about to be in for a rude awakening.

"Alright then, I'll leave if you want me to," Kylo says cooly. "I will come back tomorrow and we can try this again."

Desmond refuses to look at him. Glares at the wall but Kylo knows that he hears him. BB0 is wisely tucked into a corner, pretending to be in a cache cycle but kriff it if even the droid doesn't want to get between the this.

Kylo sets the orb on a high shelf, the one that had the cup on it earlier. Then he nudges the shelf a few millimeters with the Force, making it hang at an imperceptible angle.

He steps away and the ball begins to slowly roll down. Desmond's alarm spikes through the Force. He's too obstinate to go near Kylo to catch it before it rolls off completely and smashes into the floor.

It rolls. Further. Faster. Reaches the edge.

And tips over it.

" _Nh_ _h_ _!_ " Desmond's hand flies out, pushing with it a wave of power. The delicate glass ball hovers a few inches above ruination on the hard tile floor. It stays there, bobbing and suspended in the air by the boy's will.

Kylo breaks out into a wide smile. He watches as the boy beckons the ball over to him and it wavers through the air, ducking and dipping in a manner that's as unsteady as the child's own grasp of the Force. But it lands safely in his hand and he latches onto it, holding it against his chest and glaring up at Kylo as if he expects him to take it away.

This is the most progress they have made yet.

Gradually the boy's shoulders gradually relax and he redirects his attention away from the his looming captor and toward his prize.

The lights inside the ball glow and flicker, changing color as the boy tries to focus his abilities.

"Good," Kylo praises, trying not to feel too pleased with himself lest the boy detect upon that. "You're learning already. See what else you can make it do. It's very sensitive to power, so you'll need to use precision to manipulate it."

"You're leaving?" Desmond asks, looking up at him as Kylo begins to turn to the door.

It has been a long, long time since anyone has said that to Kylo without relief in their voice.

"I have places I need to be." And people that I need to find. "Would you like me to come back again?"

Desmond presses his lips together in a now increasingly familiar gesture. But he nods and it's enough for Kylo. Little victories and all of that.

He has an odd impulse to walk over there and pat his head. Squeeze his shoulder and tell him he's glad that he has him here. But that would be too much. Today was progress. Once his mother is brought here, the changes can be accelerated.

"Alright, Desmond. I will come back when I can. And I expect to see you have a mastery over that light when I return or it be taken away from you, do you understand?"

The boy's eyes widen. He nods quickly, poking and prodding at the cheap novelty toy with renewed vigor.

Kylo leaves his room with a saunter in his step. He returns to the world of the living feeling that, for the first time in a long while, perhaps things are going well.

* * *

Next chapter:

Raising a Force-sensitive child requires someone with boundless patience, compassion, and understanding. And then there's Kylo.


	4. Safe in the Silt

Chapter summary:

Where Kylo tries to engage a young child and it turns out that they only thing they have in common is the same level of maturity.

* * *

Kylo woke up in a single, brutal increment.

His dream had been approaching 'pleasant'. It had ended on a high note. Kylo should have known better than to hope this continues into real life.

Instead, there was no gradual return to consciousness. No lazy lounging in his – in _Rey's_ \- bed as he came back into the living world. Instead, it had happened all at once. One moment he was watching with an odd sort of pride as Desmond poked and prodded at the toy he had given him to hone his powers on, and the next Kylo was staring at the cold white tiles of the ceiling of what had once been Rey's cell.

Because he is every bit a creature of habit as much as he is a masochist, he reaches out for her. She isn't there and she isn't having anything from him anymore. She used to ping back at him, returning his sonar pulse through their bond.

Yes, I'm here. Yes, I'm still alive. Yes, I still want nothing to do with you.

It had been their daily ritual. Now Rey is an absence. A void where once her side of their bond had once been a glowing beacon of light. This sorcery can't be completely her own creation.

Does she reach out for him, too? Sometimes her presence feels stronger than before, but then it fades quickly. Gossamer strands disappearing as soon as they touch the surface of his ailing mind.

And what of the child? Why is his mind continuing to torture him like this? Torment him with a phantom figment?

The very thought of Rey, in some variation of the universe, having had a child without him… That odd mix of past tense and future tenses that follow along to the notion. It's impossible to wrap one's mind around.

Does she secretly want one? Is that why he's having these visions? Does she secretly, somewhere deep down in her subconscious that maybe even she doesn't realize, want to have a child? Someone to care for and teach and nurture?

Perhaps. Perhaps that longing is leaking through their bond, making Kylo crave these strange things as well.

Kylo had never wanted a child of his own. Had rarely even considered the notion of parenthood. Until he met Desmond.

He wants to… he wants Desmond to be real. If he was real, everything would fall into place.

In his mind, the boy looks like his mother, but he also looks like _him_. It's an impossibility, an arrogant construction of his mind. Of course, there were certain parallels between Dameron and Kylo as well. These went far beyond their mutual dark hair, one of the more obvious physical traits of Desmond that Kylo can't help but compare to his own childhood appearance.

The pilot was also a rogue and reckless and brash. Exactly like Han had been. They had both somehow stolen the affections of a woman so high above their lowly status that it was virtually unfathomable. And they had both managed to keep her by breeding her…

What had her pregnancy been like? Not his mother's, but Rey's?

What -would- have it been like, if it were to have actually happened?

The Resistance medical facilities were surely sub-par at best. If she were to have had any complications… would the pilot have been there for her? How well would they have known each other before she opened her legs for him? Would the reasons she would have done it just be to spite Kylo? She'd once said that she would have been 'well within her rights' to.

 _That_ thought is enough to finally snap Kylo out of his self-defeating reverie. That thought leads nowhere. That way lies madness.

Madness which now seems to inevitable, but that doesn't mean he's not going to fight his descent every step of the way.

* * *

Night comes far too slowly, but when it finally arrives Kylo barely makes it to his bed before being pulled under into his vision.

The boy is gone.

Kylo came to his cell fully expecting their usual one-sided struggle of attempts at dialogue. Instead Desmond is absent. Vanished so completely that not even the feeling of his soul can be sensed.

Worse than that, his room has been torn apart. All the furniture not bolted to the walls or floor has been tossed aside or flipped over. Bedsheets thrown about, food and clothes scattered, the shelf on the wall Kylo had nudged yesterday looks like it's hanging on by little more than a nail and a prayer. And a worse than useless BB unit curled into a ball in the corner, no doubt having gone into its hibernation and shelter cycle to avoid having to confront whatever had happened in here.

And no child.

No small pulse of light from him. No vibrations of a sentient presence.

It's not possible. They had only just begun their time together. It's too soon for him to go.

The thought of having lost him already makes Kylo's breath freeze in his chest. He _has_ to be here. He _has to be!_ This can't be how it ends. The boy can't simply disappear from both worlds. Kylo hasn't yet learned what the Force was trying to tell him. There has to be-

Oh _kriff_. There he is.

The child is right there in front of him, but trying desperately to hide. He'd used a trick. One that lightside children have surely used for generations to hide from other children during play or from their parents when they've been bad.

It works as a simple obfuscation, very much like casting a mental haze over that one little spot that he's occupying. Now that Kylo knows what to look for, all he can see is how the child is cowering against the far wall of his room at the greatest distance he could possibly gain from his captor in the small space.

"Desmond."

Sharp irritation and pure relief roll through Kylo in hot and cold waves, but only one of those emotions is enhanced by his vocoder.. He automatically balls his gloved hands up into fists as he stomps over to the child before he catches himself and forcibly adopts a less intimidating stance.

When Desmond realizes that the jig is up, that his kriffing _mind trick_ , didn't work, he whimpers and crouches. Curling up like that ball of future scrap metal who has just slid out of sight under the bed frame.

"What in all the hells happened in here?" Kylo barks, "what happened to your room?"

And why were you trying to hide from me? Why did you think you could get away with it and why did it almost work just long enough for me to get scared out of my mind?

The boy trembles slightly, shaking his head before he buries his face in his knees and wraps his arms around tightly himself as he cowers. Kylo's voice sounds absolutely terrifying when it's growled through his mask. Usually, from every moment up until now, that had been exactly the point.

And then Kylo sees the imprint of blood on the boy's pants. The dark patterned fabric had hidden it at first, but when he crouches he can see it. Little red circles staining the fabric, created by the boy's fingerprints as he hugs his knees to his chest.

" _Desmond..._ " Kylo's tone drops and he reaches out.

If someone, if one of the troopers, had done this-

"Leave me alone!" the boy shrieks, kicking out at him twice before immediately curling up small again.

Kylo reels back, worried that his injuries might be much more severe than he'd first thought. He could find out through his mind, but with the boy panicking this it would be a painful invasion. He has to find a way to calm him down first, and then he can start to sift through the layers for the truth.

"Who did this to you?" Kylo asks.

The boy starts to cry, then. High pitched and hiccuping sobs, and the waves of his mental state grow sharper instead of smoother.

Well that didn't work. Children are impossible. And he reaches out again only for the boy to lash out once more, a little socked foot colliding with the palm of Kylo's open hand.

" _LEAVE ME ALONE!"_

Desmond shrieks it even louder, and not for the first time Kylo is grateful that prison cells have soundproof walls or anyone overhearing would think he's murdering this child.

Then Kylo mentally kicks himself for still having his mask on because the boy really, _really_ seems to hate when he wears that. No doubt it fills in the blanks for every stereotypical storybook villain anyone ever read to him.

He yanks it off in one smooth movement and turns from the tantrumming child long enough to throw it to the side and out of sight. That's when he sees that the vent above the child's bed is open. The metal lattice covering over it is bent, nearly crumpled.

Anger sparks through him, brilliant and sharp. The child, the impossible and empathic child cringing before him, feels the change in his captor and balls over, kicking blindly out at him and screaming in a full fledged tantrum of terror.

It takes every bit of Kylo's tenuous grasp of self control to stop himself from lashing out and punching a dent into the wall above his head until his own knuckles are bloody.

Instead, he closes his eyes and counts to ten. That old, stereotypical move that harassed parents say to do when they're at the end of their rope and the child is screaming louder and louder.

"You tried to escape," his voice is strung tight but evenly, at least. "Why?"

The boy's screams waver and then increase, sharpening in pitch until Kylo's quite sure he's going to wake up out of this kriffing Force dream with a migraine.

"Stop it," he demands. "Stop crying at once. Right this moment."

Kylo debates whether he should use the Force on the boy. See if perhaps a very, very minor sedatory nudge would break his tantrum. He reaches for him again, scowling as he sees little crescents of dried blood at the tips of Desmond's fingernails.

"STOP!" the child screams, lashing out at him with both slapping hands and a wave of uncontrolled power.

The force of the blast makes Kylo blink rapidly, but he seizes the opportunity and grabs one of the small wrists. Desmond screams again, louder than before if such a thing was possible, and this time the lights in the room flicker twice and the shelf loses its battle with the nail and crashes to the floor.

Kylo glares at it over his shoulder then turns his attention back to the struggling child before him.

"Calm _down_ ," he insists, shoving a touch of pressure of the Force into his words.

The effect temporarily numbs him, and the rising thrums of chaos emanating from his prisoner falter and begin to die down.

So _that's_ what happened in here, then? Something had set Desmond off and he'd lost control of his powers? It's not that Kylo can't objectively relate, it would be quite hypocritical of him not to, but… he could have hurt himself. Has already hurt himself, but it could have been much worse. What if he'd managed to collapse the ceiling or send some piece of furniture crashing into himself? His accommodation will need to be changed. This is no longer safe for him.

He'll have to Force-proof a children's room. For a child that doesn't exist. No one said that losing your mind was going to be easy, but Kylo hadn't expected it to be this _ridiculous_.

The boy's eyes start to sag and glaze, and Kylo pulls back on his influence. He immediately resumes thrashing and howling, but not nearly with the same conviction as before.

"Show me where you're hurt," Kylo demands.

He grips the boy's shoulder steadily with one hand, pointedly ignoring how the cry of protest the action generates. Then he rotates the wrist he's holding onto and uses a controlled push of the Force to make the boy unclench his small fist.

Desmond's palm is littered with cuts. Most are small, but two are deeper and will require attention. The edges of each cut is smooth. Something very sharp must have done this.

"Desmond?" Kylo asks, pushing concern and not anger into his mind.

The boy begins to cry then. It's marginally preferable to the high-pitched shrieking from moments ago. Kylo allows him a few seconds to collect himself before nudging for an answer.

Finally, the boy looks up at him with a tear-swollen face.

' _I'm sorry_.'

The whisper is soft in Kylo's mind. Even projected, his voice wavers with emotion.

Kylo blinks, relieved that they've finally moved past the 'rolling around the floor screaming' stage of his fit. He looks down at the drying blood on Desmond's palm. He should wrap it in something then send in a medical droid, though the only thing he has on him now is his cowl which he very much doubts would be appreciated.

He drops his grip from the boy's shoulder and reaches behind himself, summoning the cast aside bedsheets that was wadded up by the door. When it flies through the air into his grip, it _tinkles_. Shards of the broken orb, the toy he had given to Desmond yesterday, fall out and shatter against the tiled floor.

Desmond stares at it then back at him. Kylo can feel his emotions sparking, fear rising in him again and fresh tears starting to fall.

' _I'm sorry! Please don't hurt me!'_

The boy's mental voice raises in pitch. Kylo lets go of him entirely and allows him to shrink back, sitting down on his backside and pulling his knees in close.

"Is that what this was all about?" he knows that he needs to be careful and not say anything too harsh to set all of _that_ off again. "You broke the toy and hurt yourself? Why would I punish you for that?"

The boy won't look at him again. He buries his face in his knees, shoulders shaking with silent tears.

Kylo… wants to rip his own hair out. What did he- _what's it going to take?!_ Why is this damn child acting so unreasonable? Desmond is cringing like he expects to be struck, and yet Kylo has never, ever done a single thing to hurt him.

Except perhaps violently take him away from his home and family and keep him locked up here against his will. Other than that, there is absolutely no reason for this.

Has someone else hurt him before? Beat him as a form of punishment for misbehavior? The thought is so barbaric that he knows that Rey would never allow it.

' _You said it was valuable. I didn't mean to break it. I tried to fix it but I couldn't and then it broke in my hand.'_

Oh kriff, the boy actually believed him about that. _Fuck_.

"Desmond, I… I-"

Kylo tries to remember how his mother used to comfort him but only drawing up memories of her and Han shouting at each other while Ben hid in his room with his head under a pillow. Ah, so it's all _their_ fault, then. Good. The reason he's apparently so terrible at pseudo-parenting can squarely be blamed on his own upbringing and not on his current choices. Perfect. It's all their fault, not his.

"I'm not angry," Kylo says.

Desmond doesn't say anything and refuses to even look up. Kylo sighs and changes tactics, going back to speaking into his mind since that seems to bring marginally better results between them.

' _Why did you think I would hurt you? I told you that I would never hurt you.'_

Why won't he just trust him? Why is that so much to ask? Desmond is only five years old, for kriff's sake. He shouldn't know fear. He should be…

Kylo stops himself short of finishing that thought with 'easy to mould'. He looks down at the child, fighting with himself the growing urge to simply embrace the small body. He has no idea where this impulse is coming from, but it _feels_ like it would be the right thing to do. Hug him and and tell him that yes, he knows that he's miserable company but please compromise a little since he's _trying so damn hard_.

And he is. Kylo is doing everything her can think of to appease this phantom of his mind. This lost figment that's trying to lead him somewhere but neither of them are capable of comprehending where or what it is.

"Why did you hurt them?"

Desmond's voice is very small. Kylo's palm itches and he has to grip his own knee to keep from reaching out to him.

Before he can ask ' _hurt who?'_ the images come flooding into his mind. There had been times that-

As Kylo Ren, Commander of the First Order, there were times that he had to slaughter families, either by his own hand or as a fallout through his actions. At the time he had told himself that it was a necessary evil. Now… now it would seem that by the very act of repressing these memories he'd been highlighting them as a beacon.

Is this it? Is this why his mind has brought him these dreams? This child is a abstraction. If he had been real, there was no way he would ever have been able to witness these memories. These and others like them are what Kylo keeps at the darkest and most unreachable corners of his psyche.

' _I hadn't meant for you to see them_.'

It's the only explanation that Kylo can offer.

' _Why did you do it?'_

There's no justification he can give. He did it and so much worse because he was told to. He could have disobeyed his orders but he chose not to. It's as simple and black and white as that.

Kylo gives in to his impulse then and reaches out, shifting his crouched stance and extending both his arms to box the child in should he try to run. Desmond cringes again, inhaling sharply and Kylo fears that he won't be able to withstand another tantrum like the last one. He would have to wake himself up and, as awful as finally having grown a conscience is, at least he isn't alone anymore in here.

"Please..." he asks plaintively.

He closes his eyes and pictures what he wants. This is _his_ _own_ dream, after all. Will of the Force or progressive decay of his own sanity be damned, Kylo knows that he's in dream and by the gods he's going to learn how to control this.

The child is a limp weight in his arms. Kylo looks down and his expression is dazed, effected too strongly by the strength of the Force that Kylo is pushing into him to keep him calm.

He scoops him up and rises, standing and pacing the small, destroyed room. Already Desmond is trying to fight against him, to use his own blossoming powers to pull away from the Force hold that's numbing him. His weight fluctuates oddly as Kylo tries to guess how much a 5 year old child would weigh. He settles on something heavier because it makes him feel more real, and then he lets go of his influence.

Desmond immediately begins to cry. Humiliation rolls through him. He's embarrassed that he couldn't fight off Kylo's control of him. Which means that he knew that Kylo was doing it. Which means that now he'll be even more afraid of him…

But rather than scream and howl at being seized by a monster, Desmond grabs onto Kylo's arm. He hugs himself to it, burying his face against the crook of the elbow. This poor, lonely boy. So afraid and desperate for comfort that he doesn't care whom he has to take it from.

Something inside Kylo breaks. He gives into the feeling, feeling a deep fissure begin to form in his soul. It cracks right along one of the seams of light and dark, and he lifts Desmond up, holding onto him so firmly so that the boy won't think for even a moment that he's going to let him go. The small dark head rests perfectly against his shoulder, letting Kylo support his weight while hugging him tightly to his own chest.

This is biology. Kylo has never thought once about why a human skeleton is built the way that it is, but now that he's holding a child in his arms it all makes perfect sense. Evolution has designed them to take care of children, and that's never been more clear than with how Desmond's head fits perfectly against the bend of his elbow and Kylo's arms are exactly the right length to hold him tight and protect him. He can comfort him and soothe him and rock him to sleep and this is exactly what he's supposed to do. Even if… even if the child is not his own and isn't even real.

Desmond begins to fade with that thought. His weight, that comforting weight in his arms, begins to dissipate. Kylo knows that he's going to wake up soon. His conscious mind is starting to rise for the day, but he fights it for as long as he can. Desmond has finally stopped crying and is letting himself be held. His young soul is drifting off to sleep just as Kylo's own is stirring awake.

And he holds off, trying to delay the inevitable. Only when Desmond is fully at peace, quiet and dreaming in his arms, does Kylo allow himself to disappear too.

* * *

Everything suffers when you don't get enough sleep. Kylo's real life had predictably gone to complete shit.

He can't kriffing concentrate. At night he dreams but he doesn't _rest_ , and by day he's sloppy and unmotivated and sharp with anger.

It should have been a straight forward enough mission: take a few of his knights and a brigade of Stormtroopers and eradicate a village of Resistance sympathizers. This was hardly a difficult mission, and it was intended to be a decisive retaliatory strike to send a clear message to other neutral-but-slanting worlds.

So they'd stormed in and killed and slaughtered until Kylo had to separate himself from the others because that _thing_ was coming back. That voice of guilt in his head. It spoke to him like a small child, not asking him to stop but instead asking the far worse question of _why?_

 _Why is he doing this?_

Because he has to.

 _Why is he letting this happen?_

Because he was told to and this is the only thing he's worthy of.

 _Why don't you try and stop this?_

Because... he has already made his choices and it's far, far too late.

Cutting down the village's defenses and security had been easy. They had been poorly trained and worse prepared. Truly this was a slaughter and not a battle.

Killing the civilians had been… Kylo had dismissed his Knights and sent them back early. No explanation had been given, and he had felt their thrums of surprise as they disappeared back onto the ship in a shiver of black, leaving nothing but disappointment and unfulfilled bloodlust in their wake. If they had one soul between them, they all hid it well.

The Stormtroopers, at least these ones that Kylo had chosen, were more pragmatic. They shot where he told them to. The deaths they caused would not be on their conscience because they were simply a conduit.

Kylo wishes he could have the same luxury.

They were down to the last few survivors when he found _them_ : a family hiding in the ruins of what had, just an hour before, been their or someone else's home. The two parents and their three young children. Four if you count the small soul growing inside the mother's heavily swollen belly. There had been terror in their eyes as the stormtroopers raised their weapons, but also anger and pride. If they were going to die, they were going to die as a family and they weren't going to beg.

Kylo had stopped the troopers at the last moment and ordered them to leave and secure the next building. These five, these _six_ , he would take care of himself.

 _That_ had been the thread of hope the family had been clinging to. The father had broken first, readily begging for his own life to be sacrificed if only the monster before them would spare his wife and children. Kylo had drawn his blade and held it to the man's neck, trying to ignore the chilling screams of the young ones in the background as their mother held them back.

Never before had Kylo been so grateful for his mask.

He had his orders and they had been very clear and succinct. Kill _all of them_. There weren't many left now. Just this family and a handful of others.

But what would he tell Desmond that night? How would he justify to the child that he had brutally murdered not only the armed opposition, but this simple man and his…

Kylo had held is blade steady, trying to tune out the pleas and the screams and the silent mental plea of the man to _just do it and spare them, please spare them…_

This man had four children. _Four_. And Kylo wasn't even allowed to have one. This man kneeling before him was nothing, a useless piece of carbon that would live and breed and die and be forever forgotten. Why is it that he gets to have child after child and Kylo can't even hold onto a figment of his of mind without it disappearing when he touches it?

His grip and wavered then, the tip of his lightsaber fluttering against the useless mans skin and burning him slightly. The children had cried harder. It must have seemed like deliberate torture to them all. The mother, despite the limited mobility at the late stages of her pregnancy, had held them back and tried to shield their eyes, using herself as a shield to protect them from what would surely be all their fate in the next few moments. And she looked so beautiful. Tear stained and on the verge of full on hysterics, but still fighting until the very end.

If he killed the man but let them live, her unborn child would never know his father. This was a war. These things had to be done.

And Kylo would have yet another thing to answer for.

He left them, _all_ of them, departing from their huddled masses with nothing more than a vague and standard threat thrown over his shoulder. No doubt something about how they should think twice about going against the First Order and to _tell the others_. The words themselves didn't matter, he had more than made his point.

This was enough, he told the Stromtroopers as he called them back to the ship. The mindlessly obedient husks of metal had trundled after him with a clear conscience because they were following orders and it was as simple as that.

What he would give to have the luxury of a life so uncomplicated...

* * *

Snoke didn't summon him that night.

Kylo had expected him to. He had failed in his mission, after all, and for no reason than his own weakness and disobedience.

The order into Snoke's Chamber should have came as soon as his boots touched the floor of the station. What would have happened next was unknown, and Kylo hadn't bothered to try and guess to brace himself for it.

Instead, his master did something far crueler and stayed silent in his head. Perhaps he was watching and lurking. Waiting for Kylo to come to _him_ for his punishment. Maybe that would have been the correct action. To willingly accept the fallout for his failure and then learn from it. Maybe he could have argued the point and said that he'd used his best judgment and… and maybe this was another test and he failed it.

Kylo stomps back to his room, sending stormtroopers and officers alike tripping over themselves to get out of his way.

Then he presses his hands to the wall, the one facing closest to where Rey's cell had been, and _listens_.

Silence.

Nothing from his Master, his grandfather, or his bondmate.

That only leaves one thing left: a meditation session focused on self-reflection. Quiet introspection has never ended well for Kylo, not even once, and today he is positive it will be no different.

He only makes it a few minutes in before falling asleep.

That happens a lot. Kylo really, _really_ hates meditating. Something he and his other half very much have in common.

When Kylo realizes that he's in a dream, he breathes deep and steadies himself. It had been a trying day, he can't face Rey's imaginary son when he's such a mess. His very presence scares the boy enough, no reason to add onto that with proof of his rising insanity.

And if Desmond really is a manifestation of a latent conscience… well then, it's going to need every tiny molecule of help it can get.

Kylo has a gift for him, too. He'd been thinking about it in the corners of his mind during the earliest parts of his day before everything went to shit, musing off and on what to offer the child to make up for their last meeting together. He had actually been looking forward to this moment, as strange and irrational as that may sound.

So it comes as a great deal of surprise when his dream pulls him in the opposite direction of Desmond's cell. He follows the impulse, surrendering without complaint to seeing whatever the Force is so hell bent on showing him.

The journey to the station's hold is vague. One moment Kylo had left his quarters, and the next he is surrounded by long shelves stretching from one end of the vast room to the other. During the siege where they had taken Desmond away from Rey and Poe, a few of his belongings had been brought with him. This was standard protocol for high level prisoners. Kylo should have remembered this much earlier, except his mind was apparently breaking and details were starting to slip through the cracks.

There wasn't much in a crate that was simply marked with Desmond's prisoner number. Kylo doesn't even know his middle name. Or his last. Though, considering how Rey has no last name to pass on, more than likely it was 'Desmond -blank- Dameron' and Kylo prefers the anonymity of not knowing over the ugly truth.

A few toys and a datapad. That was all. Kylo wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he had hoped for more.

The datapad is locked but all it takes is a simple swipe of the Force to override it. Ah, this is much better. There are many shows and movies and books loaded onto it. No more guessing which piece of First Order propaganda would be the least objectionable to a 5 year old.

He'll bring this to him shortly, and it will be a great weight off his resting mind, but it's the pictures that truly draw Kylo's attention.

They are… everything he was afraid of. Everything he hadn't wanted to see. Rey, Poe, and their son, all three posing like a happy family. Resistance rags and pilot's insignia and little boy lost all together, smiling at the camera. Probably Skywalker or the Traitor had taken the photo. It couldn't be more revolting.

Kylo is about to turn the datapad off, there are limits to even his own masochism, when a tiny and easily overlooked detail catches his eye. Dameron has his arms tightly around Rey in the photo, but he's not embracing his own son. Instead, he merely has a hand resting on Desmond's shoulder. Kylo himself has held the boy more warmly than that, and he barely even knows the child. This is a family photo, for kriffsake, if there ever was a time to show affection than-

Why is the Force showing him this? It's cruel. Cruel and unnecessary.

Han had been a cold and distant father when Ben's powers had started to develop, but surely Rey wouldn't allow such behavior around her own child, boy's father or not?

And yet there she was, smiling and oblivious, leaving Kylo alone to read between the lines.

Desmond deserves better. He needs to be protected from this. He needs to be raised closely and taught to never be afraid of what he is. He will grow up to be a god among the worthless, not a boy who has to hide his powers in the shadows lest he scare away people who couldn't possibly understand.

Kylo quickly swipes the image on the screen away, unable to stand looking at it for any longer.

There were other photos on the datapad as well, and these were far less objectionable than the first. Hazy, foggy pictures of Desmond as he is now and then as he was when he was younger. The images take their time coming into focus, Kylo's mind trying different brush strokes and colors patterns until it settles on what probably might have been.

That morning, that _real_ morning, Kylo had researched pregnancy. It had been a momentary lapse of reason, nothing more. But there had been an image attached to an article of a pretty, glowing young mother holding her newborn baby.

It takes only a small leap of Kylo's imagination to turn that woman into Rey.

She would look tired in the picture, but so very happy. Beaming bright as the sun despite her exhaustion and with a tiny little wrapped bundle in her arms. Kylo decides to have a small tuft of dark hair curl out from the edges of Desmond's wrappings because Leia had once said that he- that Ben- had been born with a full head of hair. It made for a truly beautiful family picture. So perfect that it eased the sting of the first image.

And no Poe here. No hated pilot to ruin the scene. Maybe he was the one taking the picture, or maybe he hadn't even bothered to be there for his son's birth. Either way, Kylo wouldn't have been surprised.

What else? What more would he really want to see?

He had missed out on it all, every moment of Desmond's life until now and every moment that Rey had carried him inside her.

What would she have looked like?

Kylo's dream wavers slightly at that thought. It was beyond a violation. He shouldn't be thinking about this at all. Even if he knows that none of this is real, it still feels so… forbidden.

Would she have looked like that woman today? The one that he'd spared simply because he was too weak not to?

He'd thought she was beautiful, too. A strong woman who would do anything to protect her children, no matter how horrible the odds. Rey would look like that. She would look better. Stronger. More… more _his_.

The thought had come unbidden, but now that it's been cast it cascades through Kylo's mind with a force, breaking down all his objections and attempts at self control.

Unlike guessing at Desmond's appearance as a baby, the image of Rey full and pregnant comes to Kylo so easily. In some dark corner of his mind he'd been thinking about this for nearly as long as he'd known her.

She was slim and muscular, so her bump would be quite small. Desmond would have sat quite high in her belly, and it wouldn't have been until she was several months along that she would show at all. But when she did it would be with a roundness that would be welcomed wholeheartedly by them both. A new curve shaping her slight frame that would be at the perfect height and size for Kylo to support with his hands when he embraced her from behind.

The thought of that, of feeling her skin tight and muscles firming with the swell of their child together-

No.

This has to stop.

 _Right now._

This time, Kylo throws _himself_ out of his dream. Tears his way through the layers of his resting psyche until he can open his eyes.

His room is dark. The lights have turned themselves off with the night cycle which can only mean that he was like this, slumped over uncomfortably in the meditation stance, for many more hours than he had intended.

And he hadn't even been allowed to see the child. Allowed to try and make peace with his new morality. Instead, he'd ruined the Force vision with-

Dear gods, trust his own mind to sully something so pure like that. To twist a fantasy of their perfect union into something depraved.

He should be disgusted with himself- he _is_ disgusted with himself - but that doesn't stop his body from reacting to his dream. By the time he untangles his stiff and painful limbs from their crossed positioning, his lower half is aching with unrequited desire.

He won't do anything about that. He refuses to. And it takes him far longer than it should under the coldest setting of his fresher until the feeling of need subsides.

Great. Perfect. Now instead of just 'lunatic' he can add 'deranged pervert' to his mental downward spiral.

This is going to be a long few days. Kylo can't imagine that ti will take much longer for his mind to crack in half.

Right now, the peace of insanity can't come fast enough.

* * *

Author's Note:

Possessive creeper much? Gotta catch up the plot to those tags, though don't expect anything too racy for this fic (and I've got plenty of raunchy smut out there enough as it is). And I know it's a little heavy handed on the imagery here, but hey, Kylo is a bit of a drama queen. Angst looks good on him.

Next chapter:

The problem with going down the rabbit hole is you never know if you're going to come out at the same place.


	5. story notes

Authors note:

Hi everyone! Probably a lot of you have no idea what this story is or why I'm bothering to write a non-update after 7+ months, but bear with me:

Right, so one of my first series in the SW universe is my The ties that Bind Series. This story, which I started writing over a year ago, was supposed to be a continuation of that series and I had and still have 2 more installments in the series planned. However, with Save Me From Myself, I hit a lot of turbulence and it was pretty unpopular and ultimately I decided I didn't want to continue it anymore. I officially abandoned it back in April but I was never really happy with how I ended it and brought the whole series to a halt.

So today I was cleaning out some stuff and found my old notes for this story and thought maybe I'd want to continue it maybe? Nope, still can't stand it. Don't like this fic at all. BUT I do want to someday continue the series I want to close this fic up properly so it stops bugging the back of my mind every time I see it on my dashboard.

Closure anyone? I want closure. So, without any further ado, here are my original bullet point notes and occasional annotations on what was going to happen in Save Me From Myself:

 **chapter 5: Down in a Hole**

Kylo's getting much more neurotic, keeps fantasizing about Rey pregnant, jealous he missed out on that

Kylo's work has been suffering, Snoke notices

Kylo reaches out for Rey through the Force, gets nothing back, loses his shit a little

doting on Desmond (damnit, still like this name! If I ever write a baby fic when they have a son I'm totes using it). Kylo tries to but Desmond's love with toys/etc because he feels he can never earn it himself. (angst much?)

Kylo teaches Desmond more of the Force, frustration at having to do it from afar because he has to hide his darkness. At this point Kylo is torn because he knows that Desmond isn't real, that he's just a figment of his imagination and dreams, but he's also afraid that if Snoke finds out about these dreams he'd take them away from him. (yep, more angst! Now I'm really starting to remember why I didn't like this fic…)

early confrontation with Snoke about his increasingly erratic behavior

Snoke's reaction to hearing that Kylo had Rey in his custody and he didn't tell him and she got away, Snoke takes it alarming well (dum dum de dum…)

Kylo hides Desmond deep in his mind, fear of losing imaginary son

Kylo feels an impulse of Rey and Poe together through the force

Kylo assigned a retaliatory mission against the Resistance (some of this I think I used in the last final chapter, don't remember and just skimmed it)

 **chapter 6: Idle Hands are the Devil's Playthings**

Kylo leads a very bloody battle against the Resistance, really has something to prove to himself

self reflection and hardcore denial

Kylo senses Rey feeling him through the Force, she's trying to check up on him but the moment she feels him back she runs away

that night no Desmond in his dreams, but he summons Rey to him and surprisingly it works! You know what that means: time for some pervy preggo sex!

Back to real life: Kylo is so distracted with the next wave of the assault on the Resistance that he bungles it up really good, huge disaster

Kylo's self reflection on the prostitute and how he's fucked things up in his life

Kylo refuses to abandon Desmond like he was abandoned (nevermind that Desmond's not even really, I was trying to establish that Kylo's really start to lose the plot between reality and fiction)

 **Chapter 7: My Black Little Heart**

back in dreamtime, Desmond's back and he uses mind tricks to try and ultimately fail to escape Kylo's clutches, Kylo is equally parts impressed and very hurt

Snoke confronts Kylo about his dreams, gives an ultimatum

moment of crisis: Kylo rejects Desmond and his dream life and banishes them from his mind himself

Kylo tries to tear down Rey's walls around their bond, hurts them both but fails, still he can feel Rey's concern that he's losing it

Rey finally comes to him, brings him back from the edge and they share a soft moment

crushing guilt, realizes that if he and Rey ever had a child together Snoke would do to him what he did to Ben, Kylo can't let that happen

dream again of Desmond, reassurance but also a super angsty scene (like, super angsty. IDK why I had so much damned angst in this fic, like really?)

 **Chapter 8: Over and Over**

(most of this chapter was an extended dream sequence I think? I don't actually remember what I intended to happen here, but here are my notes as I wrote them to myself:)

Kylo sets up his quarters and moves Desmond in there to keep him safe and out of the prison cell, plus guilt he didn't do this sooner

Kylo tries to comfort Desmond because the poor kid is scared shitless of the lunatic who's playing daddy with him (some of this scene was pretty funny so I'm not posting it here in case I decide to use it somewhere for something else!)

"tenderness from IRL and Dream Rey, triggers Snoke, Kylo affection and Light" (put in quotes because that's directly what my notes say and no, I don't know what they mean either)

Snoke has had enough of this shit, his apprentice is all kinds of derpy and he demands Kylo sever the force bond with rey now on his own (this fic was pre-TLJ when the idea of the force bond was different than canon proved)

Kylo promises to sever the connection but is totally lying, Snoke sees through this and mentally attacks Kylo, knocking him unconscious and torturing him

Kylo, dreaming while unconscious and tortured, imagines that Rey has somehow miraculously appeared on his ship

he proudly shows a captured Rey how he's carted for Desmond, presents her healthy and happy (ish) son to her to try to win her affections, extended reactions scene with Rey, let's just say she's not happy, but when Kylo (still dreaming) storms off to cool off from their latest fight he comes back and she and Desmond are sleeping in his bed and it's all awwww (yeah… no… last and final appearance of Desmond BTW)

final scene was a pan out to Snoke torturing a delirious Kylo really good

 **chapter 9: Hell to Pay**

Snoke doing nasty stuff to Kylo's mind, Kylo has moment of reflection and realizes the true nature of his master

(would have been a hallucinogenic dream sex with rey scene, apparently. I don't know why I thought this was either a good or appropriate idea to have here?)

Kylo finally wakes up, overpowers Snoke and flees, Snoke makes it too easy on him to get away (again ominous music of foreshadowing)

just to add insult to injury, Kylo has another force vision of Rey and Poe together, totally loses it and solo attacks a restistance base where Poe is stationed

has the opportunity to blow that shit out of the sky, then Kylo ultimately redeems himself by calling off the attack because he knew Rey would never forgive him if he went through with it and paradoxically Desmond would never exist if he killed his father (because this version of Kylo was a troubled young man…)

Kylo goes rogue from the First Order, sets off to find Rey himself

 **Chapter 10: Epilogue: Paved With Good Intentions**

Kylo thinks that their bond is the will fo the Force and he uses the thread to guide him to Rey

oops, spoilers, Rey is actually leading him to her

Rey and Luke's BIG PLAN finally revealed (actually mostly Luke's plan since dear gods is he ever tired of that little shit nephew of his…): all the dreams of Desmond and the visions of Rey and Poe hooking up were totally fake and planted in Kylo's mind BY Luke through his and rey's force bond. Cruel? Sure. But ultimately worth it because it brings Kylo back to them.

Kylo realizes the trick but doesn't let on, challenges Rey to fight him but he's already decided that, cruel lie or not, she's his soul mate and they are destined to be together no matter what it costs him or anyone (more foreshadowing ominous music? You freakin' betcha!)

Kylo plots a trap of his own for Rey, she falls for it and this sets the stage for the next installment in the series where the meet face to face

final line: "For the first time since his transformation, the light has called to Kylo ren and he has answered back. No what will be remains unwritten."

(ps. I think that final line made more sense in my head)

THE END

Well… that was… something. Rereading and then typing these notes made for an oddly meta Saturday evening for me. I definitely don't like this story now. Maybe a year ago this was more my thing but now not at all.

It's interesting that, aside from a few major issues, this could almost work as a pre-prequel to No rest for the Wicked. Like Kylo's whole ambushing Rey idea could totally have been The Space in Between if I'd decided to go that way. And now I really don't like Luke scheme. It's just cruel. But keep in mind this was pre TLJ where we had no idea how Luke's character was going to be and there were rumors swirling he'd be a hero-villain hybrid so… yeah, I can see where I was going with this but I'm glad I never finished this project because now i'd have to be apologizing for it.

So where does this leave my Ties That Bind Series? I still want to keep it going, but I think I'll just do a time jump over the events in this story. No clue at all when that will be, I'm having a serious moment with my writing right now so I'm sticking to one shots for the time being.

BUT I hope someone here got something out of these notes. Maybe they at least made for a few minutes entertaining reading, right? And now I can finally put this story to rest.

Love to all who read this then and now, and if you're interested keep an eye out for my future works or drop me a line on tumblr at lost-inthesunlight! Hope to hear from you all! XOXO


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